Chiefs Ten Things About Last Night's Playoff Loss

**gblowfish** · 09:09 PM

Ten Things About Last Night’s Playoff Loss

10. After the game last night it was a slow, depressing trudge back to my car with Mrs. Blowfish, rain gear, blankets and familiar post-season indigestion in tow. By the time I got out of the parking lot, back to Stately Wayne Minor in Independence and stripped of my loser gear, it was after Midnight, with work waiting for me on this cheery Monday Morning. I decided to just go to bed so that my head could clear, I could gather my thoughts, and try to speak rationally about this latest Chiefs playoff failure. This morning, I’m really not all that upset, because I expected this. The Steelers are a better team. Sorry, but it’s as simple as that. They are better and deserved to win and move on. Did they get a fourth quarter boost from the zebras? Yeah, maybe you could argue that. Or you could argue that the holding call is never made if Rodgers or Brady throw that pass. But it never should have come down to forcing a two point conversion anyway. More on that later. One of my favorite cartoons is this one:

If you’re going to be a Chiefs fan, you have to be a realist. So I’m going to talk about the glass being half empty, half full, and basically how the glass is filled with piss. Perfect metaphor for this 2016 season.

9. The Glass is Half Empty: Going into this game, I saw these facts as the biggest hurdle to winning: Alex Smith is an average quarterback. He will not bring you back from a deficit to win. It rarely happens with Alex at the helm. Chiefs run defense is awful. They led the league in giving up runs of ten yards or more, and since Derrick Johnson’s injury, run defense has been a giant liability. Defense and special teams scored almost 50% of the team’s points in the regular season. Chiefs must have a scoring contribution from defense, or a punt or kickoff return to be competitive. Chiefs have been terrible on third down conversions-last night they were 2 for 9. Chiefs have not generated the kind of pass rush that was anticipated when the season started. We’ll get to Alex in a minute. He’s not the only reason KC lost, but certainly he did not do nearly enough to make them win. Run defense has been severely weakened by a season of crippling injuries - No DJ, no Howard or Bailey, Poe with a tweaky back. Defense only forced one turnover -Berry’s pick on a Zombo tipped ball in the end zone- nothing substantial from Hill on special teams, but the defense only forced one punt all night long. Hard to blame Hill for that. He tried running out several kickoffs, but couldn’t get a hole to run up the field.

8. The national media measured the big three of both teams against each other. For the Steelers, it was Ben, Bell and Brown. For KC it was Smith, Kelce and Hill. How does that compare? Rapitsburger vs. Smith: Ben led six scoring drives and was only sacked once; threw one pick on a tipped pass that Berry downed in the end zone. Pittsburgh had 224 yards passing. Not great, but he did have a receiver go for over 100 yards -Brown- and did it all starting with a foot in a walking boot earlier in the week. Smith threw for 172 yards, ran for 9 yards, had one pick where he got sacked and the ball popped up in the air, and averaged 4.7 yards per completion. He also had critical drops by Maclin, West, Ware and Kelce. Bell had 30 carries for 170 yards - monster game. Ware had eight carries for 36 yards - puny production. Brown had six catches for 108 - including a easy 52 yard bomb burning Justin Houston:
View My Video
Maclin only two catches for 28 yards. Kelce wasn’t even the best tight end on the field. Steelers Jesse James had five catches for 83 yards, Kelce had five catches for 77 yards -which was tops for all KC receivers- but he also had a game changing drop deep in Steelers territory, then followed that up with a stupid personal foul, shoving a Pittsburgh player to the ground while the Chiefs burned a critical second half time out:
The Drop:
View My Video
The Penalty:
View My Video
Vahe Gregorian in the KC Star had this to say about Kelce, and how he needs to control his emotions and grow up:
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt...126785839.html

7. People this morning were applauding the defense for not giving up a TD. We’ll that’s true, but they did give up six total scoring drives, and only forced one punt in the game. Bob Sutton did some stuff that really made no sense. I understand Rapistburger beat a blitz on the bomb to Brown, but then at the final two minute warning, it’s 3rd and 3, Chiefs out of time outs and need a stop to have any chance to win, instead of bringing heat on Rapistburger, they send Houston out on pass coverage AGAIN against Brown; Ben has all day to throw, Brown works open, makes his only catch of the second half, but beats Houston to ice the game. Why is Peters not covering Brown on that play, and why is your $100 million man, Justin Houston, NOT rushing the QB?
View My Video
Chiefs vaunted pass rush combo of Hali, Houston and Ford had a combined record of 1/2 sack. Not good enough for a playoff game. Hali is done. Houston had no real impact plays. Ford had his half sack and that was about it. Chris Jones tipped a couple balls, but the defensive front seven gave up over six yards per carry to Bell.

6. On the two point conversion: A couple of things: One, that drive to get the ball down and score the TD took almost seven minutes. Seven Freaking Minutes. Reminded me of the leisurely offensive pace the Chiefs had last year in chewing up the clock for the Pats in last years playoff loss. Again, Reid shows no sense of urgency, and forces the game down to a make or break two point conversion. Was the play on Harrison a hold? Yeah, it was. Did Harrison milk the call by falling down? Yeah, he did.
View My Video
Do the refs make that call against Rodgers or Brady if they’re bringing their teams back for a tying two point conversion. Nope, never in a million years, especially not at Lambeau Field or Gillette Stadium. Did Alex have a second chance to convert? Yeah, but making a 12-yard conversion is a million times harder. Did the Chiefs have a chance after that? Yeah. They passed on an on-side kick, and when the defense got down to a critical third and three after the two minute warning, couldn’t get to Ben or stop Brown. Game over. KC actually out scored Pittsburgh in two quarters, and played them even in the third. The second quarter was the killer. Pittsburgh was way over two to one ratio in TOP, and Smith and the offense did absolutely NOTHING in the second quarter. Squandered a lead, tired out the defense, and lost any advantage they may have had with the bye week rest.

5. The Glass is Half Full: If you want to be the typical Chiefs optimist, or work for the Chiefs PR department, you could say all of this and paint a much rosier picture. KC won the AFC West by going 6-0 against the division. They did this in playing in a variety of bad weather at Arrowhead and on the road. Many games involved rain, snow or extreme cold. Two losses to AFC teams were to playoff teams (Texans and Steelers), and the losses to Tennessee and Tampa Bay were to teams with up and coming young franchise QBs (Mariota and Winston). KC had several first team All Pros. Tyreek Hill and Kelce are bonafide offensive stars. Eric Berry has a story book season coming back from cancer. Chris Jones had a great rookie season, and will only be better when Howard and Bailey make it back. Peters was fabulous. KC went one step further in the playoff pecking order by earning a first round bye. Dorsey has stockpiled a bunch of draft picks for the upcoming draft. Charles and DJ have an outside opportunity at coming back from injury (I’m doubtful on both). And 2017 Chiefs season tickets are available right now from your friendly Chiefs Sales Associate. There. Feel all better now?

4. The Glass is Full of Piss: A big deal was made about how Andy Reid was 19-2 coming off a bye, and 3-0 with playoff byes. Truth is, he’s now 1-3 in the playoffs as KC’s coach. That stinks and is becoming Schottenheimer-esque. In Arrowhead’s 45 year history, KC has two…..TWO…home playoff victories. That’s a disgrace. The bye week may have made a difference, where KC only got beat by two instead of getting blown out like the first time the Steelers won at Pittsburgh. Reid was out coached, and again showed extremely poor clock management and a lack of urgency in the fourth quarter. He gave the team no option but the two point conversion, which the refs were able to manage on behalf of Papa John’s and the NFL. Kidding, but not really. Is this league fixed, or what!

3. The elephant in the room is the starting QB. We talk about it until we all want to puke, but it’s a painful truth. This team’s culture is one that cannot or will not draft and develop an legitimate, elite, team leading, dangerous skilled starting QB. Nobody fears Alex Smith. Alex is not the worst QB in the league. He’s somewhere in bottom middle. But the results with a guy like that at the helm is predictable. Look who’s left in the cage match: Three sure first ballot HOF QB’s and possibly this year’s NFL MVP (Ryan in Atlanta). Who got bounced? Osweasle, a rookie in Dallas, and Alex. It’s especially frustrating with Alex, because he’s being paid like other elite NFL QBs. He just doesn’t measure up in crunch time. Somebody else on the CP brought this up but it’s worth repeating. You can go back all the way to Mackovic getting KC to the playoffs in 1986 against the Jets, and look at the QB match ups for KC vs. the Opponent. Guess what? Arguably every single time, we lost to a much better QB. Here’s the list:

1986: Pat Ryan> Kenney/Sackledge
1990: Marino> DeBerg
1991: Jim Kelley> DeBerg/Vlasic
1992: Humphries> Krieg
1993: Kelly> Montana
1994: Marino> Montana
1995: Harbaugh> Bono
1997: Elway> Grbac
2003: Manning> Green
2006: Manning> Green
2010: Flacco> Casshole
2013: Luck> Smith
2015: Brady> Smith
2016: Rapistburger>Smith

Over the past 14 years, every AFC Super Bowl team has been led by either Brady, Manning, Rapistburger or Flacco, all better QBs than Smith. And there’s many better AFC QBs on the way up who will only improve including Mariotta, Luck and (most scary) Carr. Until Clark figures this out, what you saw this year is going to be as good as this business model will produce. They may have even over-produced this year.

2. Kudos to the fans who showed up last night. A lot of fans braved potentially dangerous weather to show up. I’m thankful the predicted nasty weather never materialized, or a lot of people may have gotten hurt. The fans were loud the entire game and did their best to affect Ben’s snap counts. I have nothing but love for all the true KC fans who laid it out there. For you young guys who have only suffered through a few playoff losses, perhaps this one will give you some empathy into us older guys who have lived through this type of loss for the last 45 years. I’m running out of years that I’ll be able to go out and be a part of the sea of red. I know that, and even though we got closer to a Chiefs Super Bowl, anybody who understands football knows the Chiefs are still many miles away.

1. So, that’s a wrap. Again, my apologies for this taking so long…pesky job responsibilities and all that. Hopefully Dorsey won’t run off and take over the Packers, and he’ll draft a franchise QB that will one day be an elite leader we can all believe in. Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training in a month. You KU and K-State guys have basketball. Mizzou fans have, uh…..we have…. HBO and Showtime. Thanks again for reading my ill-focused ramblings, and perhaps one day Lucy will actually allow us to kick the football.

01-16-2017, 10:49 AM	Topic Starter
gblowfish Be Kind To Your Pets Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Glorious Independence, MO Casino cash: $16896178 VARSITY	Ten Things About Last Night's Playoff Loss Ten Things About Last Night’s Playoff Loss 10. After the game last night it was a slow, depressing trudge back to my car with Mrs. Blowfish, rain gear, blankets and familiar post-season indigestion in tow. By the time I got out of the parking lot, back to Stately Wayne Minor in Independence and stripped of my loser gear, it was after Midnight, with work waiting for me on this cheery Monday Morning. I decided to just go to bed so that my head could clear, I could gather my thoughts, and try to speak rationally about this latest Chiefs playoff failure. This morning, I’m really not all that upset, because I expected this. The Steelers are a better team. Sorry, but it’s as simple as that. They are better and deserved to win and move on. Did they get a fourth quarter boost from the zebras? Yeah, maybe you could argue that. Or you could argue that the holding call is never made if Rodgers or Brady throw that pass. But it never should have come down to forcing a two point conversion anyway. More on that later. One of my favorite cartoons is this one: If you’re going to be a Chiefs fan, you have to be a realist. So I’m going to talk about the glass being half empty, half full, and basically how the glass is filled with piss. Perfect metaphor for this 2016 season. 9. The Glass is Half Empty: Going into this game, I saw these facts as the biggest hurdle to winning: Alex Smith is an average quarterback. He will not bring you back from a deficit to win. It rarely happens with Alex at the helm. Chiefs run defense is awful. They led the league in giving up runs of ten yards or more, and since Derrick Johnson’s injury, run defense has been a giant liability. Defense and special teams scored almost 50% of the team’s points in the regular season. Chiefs must have a scoring contribution from defense, or a punt or kickoff return to be competitive. Chiefs have been terrible on third down conversions-last night they were 2 for 9. Chiefs have not generated the kind of pass rush that was anticipated when the season started. We’ll get to Alex in a minute. He’s not the only reason KC lost, but certainly he did not do nearly enough to make them win. Run defense has been severely weakened by a season of crippling injuries - No DJ, no Howard or Bailey, Poe with a tweaky back. Defense only forced one turnover -Berry’s pick on a Zombo tipped ball in the end zone- nothing substantial from Hill on special teams, but the defense only forced one punt all night long. Hard to blame Hill for that. He tried running out several kickoffs, but couldn’t get a hole to run up the field. 8. The national media measured the big three of both teams against each other. For the Steelers, it was Ben, Bell and Brown. For KC it was Smith, Kelce and Hill. How does that compare? Rapitsburger vs. Smith: Ben led six scoring drives and was only sacked once; threw one pick on a tipped pass that Berry downed in the end zone. Pittsburgh had 224 yards passing. Not great, but he did have a receiver go for over 100 yards -Brown- and did it all starting with a foot in a walking boot earlier in the week. Smith threw for 172 yards, ran for 9 yards, had one pick where he got sacked and the ball popped up in the air, and averaged 4.7 yards per completion. He also had critical drops by Maclin, West, Ware and Kelce. Bell had 30 carries for 170 yards - monster game. Ware had eight carries for 36 yards - puny production. Brown had six catches for 108 - including a easy 52 yard bomb burning Justin Houston: View My Video Maclin only two catches for 28 yards. Kelce wasn’t even the best tight end on the field. Steelers Jesse James had five catches for 83 yards, Kelce had five catches for 77 yards -which was tops for all KC receivers- but he also had a game changing drop deep in Steelers territory, then followed that up with a stupid personal foul, shoving a Pittsburgh player to the ground while the Chiefs burned a critical second half time out: The Drop: View My Video The Penalty: View My Video Vahe Gregorian in the KC Star had this to say about Kelce, and how he needs to control his emotions and grow up: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt...126785839.html 7. People this morning were applauding the defense for not giving up a TD. We’ll that’s true, but they did give up six total scoring drives, and only forced one punt in the game. Bob Sutton did some stuff that really made no sense. I understand Rapistburger beat a blitz on the bomb to Brown, but then at the final two minute warning, it’s 3rd and 3, Chiefs out of time outs and need a stop to have any chance to win, instead of bringing heat on Rapistburger, they send Houston out on pass coverage AGAIN against Brown; Ben has all day to throw, Brown works open, makes his only catch of the second half, but beats Houston to ice the game. Why is Peters not covering Brown on that play, and why is your $100 million man, Justin Houston, NOT rushing the QB? View My Video Chiefs vaunted pass rush combo of Hali, Houston and Ford had a combined record of 1/2 sack. Not good enough for a playoff game. Hali is done. Houston had no real impact plays. Ford had his half sack and that was about it. Chris Jones tipped a couple balls, but the defensive front seven gave up over six yards per carry to Bell. 6. On the two point conversion: A couple of things: One, that drive to get the ball down and score the TD took almost seven minutes. Seven Freaking Minutes. Reminded me of the leisurely offensive pace the Chiefs had last year in chewing up the clock for the Pats in last years playoff loss. Again, Reid shows no sense of urgency, and forces the game down to a make or break two point conversion. Was the play on Harrison a hold? Yeah, it was. Did Harrison milk the call by falling down? Yeah, he did. View My Video Do the refs make that call against Rodgers or Brady if they’re bringing their teams back for a tying two point conversion. Nope, never in a million years, especially not at Lambeau Field or Gillette Stadium. Did Alex have a second chance to convert? Yeah, but making a 12-yard conversion is a million times harder. Did the Chiefs have a chance after that? Yeah. They passed on an on-side kick, and when the defense got down to a critical third and three after the two minute warning, couldn’t get to Ben or stop Brown. Game over. KC actually out scored Pittsburgh in two quarters, and played them even in the third. The second quarter was the killer. Pittsburgh was way over two to one ratio in TOP, and Smith and the offense did absolutely NOTHING in the second quarter. Squandered a lead, tired out the defense, and lost any advantage they may have had with the bye week rest. 5. The Glass is Half Full: If you want to be the typical Chiefs optimist, or work for the Chiefs PR department, you could say all of this and paint a much rosier picture. KC won the AFC West by going 6-0 against the division. They did this in playing in a variety of bad weather at Arrowhead and on the road. Many games involved rain, snow or extreme cold. Two losses to AFC teams were to playoff teams (Texans and Steelers), and the losses to Tennessee and Tampa Bay were to teams with up and coming young franchise QBs (Mariota and Winston). KC had several first team All Pros. Tyreek Hill and Kelce are bonafide offensive stars. Eric Berry has a story book season coming back from cancer. Chris Jones had a great rookie season, and will only be better when Howard and Bailey make it back. Peters was fabulous. KC went one step further in the playoff pecking order by earning a first round bye. Dorsey has stockpiled a bunch of draft picks for the upcoming draft. Charles and DJ have an outside opportunity at coming back from injury (I’m doubtful on both). And 2017 Chiefs season tickets are available right now from your friendly Chiefs Sales Associate. There. Feel all better now? 4. The Glass is Full of Piss: A big deal was made about how Andy Reid was 19-2 coming off a bye, and 3-0 with playoff byes. Truth is, he’s now 1-3 in the playoffs as KC’s coach. That stinks and is becoming Schottenheimer-esque. In Arrowhead’s 45 year history, KC has two…..TWO…home playoff victories. That’s a disgrace. The bye week may have made a difference, where KC only got beat by two instead of getting blown out like the first time the Steelers won at Pittsburgh. Reid was out coached, and again showed extremely poor clock management and a lack of urgency in the fourth quarter. He gave the team no option but the two point conversion, which the refs were able to manage on behalf of Papa John’s and the NFL. Kidding, but not really. Is this league fixed, or what! 3. The elephant in the room is the starting QB. We talk about it until we all want to puke, but it’s a painful truth. This team’s culture is one that cannot or will not draft and develop an legitimate, elite, team leading, dangerous skilled starting QB. Nobody fears Alex Smith. Alex is not the worst QB in the league. He’s somewhere in bottom middle. But the results with a guy like that at the helm is predictable. Look who’s left in the cage match: Three sure first ballot HOF QB’s and possibly this year’s NFL MVP (Ryan in Atlanta). Who got bounced? Osweasle, a rookie in Dallas, and Alex. It’s especially frustrating with Alex, because he’s being paid like other elite NFL QBs. He just doesn’t measure up in crunch time. Somebody else on the CP brought this up but it’s worth repeating. You can go back all the way to Mackovic getting KC to the playoffs in 1986 against the Jets, and look at the QB match ups for KC vs. the Opponent. Guess what? Arguably every single time, we lost to a much better QB. Here’s the list: 1986: Pat Ryan> Kenney/Sackledge 1990: Marino> DeBerg 1991: Jim Kelley> DeBerg/Vlasic 1992: Humphries> Krieg 1993: Kelly> Montana 1994: Marino> Montana 1995: Harbaugh> Bono 1997: Elway> Grbac 2003: Manning> Green 2006: Manning> Green 2010: Flacco> Casshole 2013: Luck> Smith 2015: Brady> Smith 2016: Rapistburger>Smith Over the past 14 years, every AFC Super Bowl team has been led by either Brady, Manning, Rapistburger or Flacco, all better QBs than Smith. And there’s many better AFC QBs on the way up who will only improve including Mariotta, Luck and (most scary) Carr. Until Clark figures this out, what you saw this year is going to be as good as this business model will produce. They may have even over-produced this year. 2. Kudos to the fans who showed up last night. A lot of fans braved potentially dangerous weather to show up. I’m thankful the predicted nasty weather never materialized, or a lot of people may have gotten hurt. The fans were loud the entire game and did their best to affect Ben’s snap counts. I have nothing but love for all the true KC fans who laid it out there. For you young guys who have only suffered through a few playoff losses, perhaps this one will give you some empathy into us older guys who have lived through this type of loss for the last 45 years. I’m running out of years that I’ll be able to go out and be a part of the sea of red. I know that, and even though we got closer to a Chiefs Super Bowl, anybody who understands football knows the Chiefs are still many miles away. 1. So, that’s a wrap. Again, my apologies for this taking so long…pesky job responsibilities and all that. Hopefully Dorsey won’t run off and take over the Packers, and he’ll draft a franchise QB that will one day be an elite leader we can all believe in. Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training in a month. You KU and K-State guys have basketball. Mizzou fans have, uh…..we have…. HBO and Showtime. Thanks again for reading my ill-focused ramblings, and perhaps one day Lucy will actually allow us to kick the football. Last edited by gblowfish; 01-16-2017 at 09:09 PM..
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